Charity chairwoman paid for work not put out to tender

THE chairwoman of a charity at the centre of a storm over irregular payments to its chief executive has confirmed she was herself paid thousands of pounds of public money by the body for work that was not put out to tender.

THE chairwoman of a charity at the centre of a storm over irregular payments to its chief executive has confirmed she was herself paid thousands of pounds of public money by the body for work that was not put out to tender.

Rita Austin, a former Cardiff Labour councillor, resumed her previous role as chairwoman of Awema, the All Wales Ethnic Minority Association, in December. She has come under criticism for not sacking the organisation’s chief executive Naz Malik, who has admitted using £9,340.36 of the charity’s money to clear his credit card debt and receiving a further £2,500 as an unauthorised loan. Mr Malik, who said the money represented an advance on his expenses, was found guilty of gross misconduct but instead of being dismissed was given a written warning. He was ordered in December to repay the sum of £5,214, still outstanding since the card debt was cleared in July 2010.

Mr Malik was also given an oral warning after failing to make declarations of interest “on all relevant occasions where he, or members of his family, stand to benefit from trustee and board decision making”.

The chief executive’s daughter and daughter-in-law are both employed in senior roles by Awema, and his wife and son have acted as volunteers at the charity.

In addition, Mr Malik was offered “words of advice” after a disciplinary panel considered “management style and practice allegations” made by some staff and more ex-members of staff.

Awema has been awarded £8.4m of European aid money to improve the employment prospects of people from ethnic minorities. Its funding has been suspended by the Welsh Government, which is currently investigating whether public money has been properly spent.

The disciplinary action followed the report of an independent inquiry out by Paul Dunn, who recently retired as chief executive of the Bristol-based organisation Equality South West, after being commissioned by Awema’s trustees.

Mr Dunn’s report refers to a payment of £12,000 made to Mrs Austin during a previous period when she chaired the body in the middle of the last decade.

Yesterday, Mrs Austin told to the Western Mail she had nominated herself to write research papers for Awema that had been commissioned in a single tender arrangement from the Welsh Government’s equality unit. She confirmed she had been paid £12,000 for one piece of work, and that in addition she had been paid for further pieces of work.

She said: “When Awema was awarded the contracts I said I would do the work, and I make no apology for that whatsoever. There are not many people with the expertise to do this kind of specialist work, which involved looking at the many difficulties people from black and minority ethnic communities experience when they try to access services. Wales has a very complex pattern of ethnic minority communities, and I knew I could do the work.”

Mrs Austin said she no longer had an electronic record of the work she had done for the Welsh Government, having “cleaned up” her computer some years ago.

She said the £12,000 payment to her had been ratified after the event by the charity’s trustees and was “entirely in order”.

Plaid Cymru AM Rhodri Glyn Thomas said: “The revelations relating to Awema just get worse and worse. I find it unbelievable that Mrs Austin put herself forward to do this work when she was chairing the organisation. I can’t believe she was the only person capable of writing such reports.

“The Welsh Government should look into the circumstances in which Mrs Austin ended up being paid for this work out of public funds.”

Equalities Minister Jane Hutt is expected to report on the Welsh Government’s investigation next week.

Mrs Austin said she took serious exception to a statement made by Mr Dunn on BBC Wales’ Dragon’s Eye TV programme in which he expressed concern about the allegations being “whitewashed”.

“I am a person of colour and the overwhelming majority of Awema’s trustees and senior employees are people of colour. To refer to a ‘whitewash’ is deeply offensive,” she said.